“Lucas, they would have done terrible things to me.”
“At least you would still be alive.”
“But I’m alive now.”
“Not for long,” Lucas mumbles under his breath.
Maia’s heart begins to pound. “So that’s it? I make it this far and now I get to die on some shithole trash island?”
“Maia, we are in the middle of nowhere. Compreendo?” He speaks slowly, patronizing her.
Despite being unfamiliar with his language, she can assume by his tone that he’s asking if she understands. She puts her hand on her hip in defiance.
“Look at us!” Lucas stands, throwing the bow to the ground. “We are stranded on a mountain of trash that no boat will ever come near. We are fucked, Maia. We are just delaying the inevitable.”
“You know what? I used to think you were so brave, fighting for me back there with that man—”
“Bode! His name was Bode. And he used to be my friend.”
“Your friend? How could you be friends with someone like that?”
“There is a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Yeah, I bet there is. Well, I’m not giving up. I’ll never give up. I’ll find a way…” She stumbles away from him, repeating like a prayer, “There’s always a way. There’s always a way.”
Maia trudges as far across the limited patch of land as she can until the rubbish lumps into piles from the waves. She sits down in a huff. She’s used to being able to run away, leave whenever her temper flairs, but now there is nowhere to go.
She’s stranded on this puny island with that asshole.
She tilts her head back and breathes deeply to calm her nerves. Time slips away as the sky swells into a deep orange before fading to a pale violet. A few early evening stars flicker along the horizon while the makeshift hills and valleys of wreckage move atop the placid ocean. Crabs sporadically scurry across the mounds. The evening ushers in a slightly cooler breeze, a relief after the scorching hot day.
A seagull calls from above as wafts of smoke drift before her. He’s done it. And he also has all the food.
Dammit.
Is this all her fault? Lucas is clearly blaming himself, but surely she is equally to blame. She shouldn’t have been out in daylight. She shouldn’t have left that nook. She should have kept quiet. She certainly shouldn’t have talked to him.
But she couldn’t not talk to him.
Lucas slowly makes his way across the rubble behind her and four smoking crab legs lower in front of her face. “Peace offering?” he asks quietly from behind.
It takes every ounce of restraint not to rip that crab from the blackened spear and inhale it like a dog. Lucas sits next to her, silent as she devours every delectable piece. He hands her more and she takes them without speaking.
“I had a feeling there was a stowaway. I knew about you for a long time. Not you exactly—but someone. There were a lot of careless clues left behind. It wasn’t the first time Davies had smuggled someone on board, but I am almost certain it was the first time he had smuggled a woman. He had that damn area blocked off and made sure we all knew it was off-limits. He put a few blankets over different crates to create a … how do you say … diversion?”
She nods.
“Anyway, it was not hard to see your area did not have a crate. I was preparing to make a deal with him to keep you a secret. I had been thinking of different negotiations. He was always a man of his word. In a world of criminals, your word is more valuable than gold. But he is also a powerful man, not one you consider threatening lightly.”
“Negotiating? For what?”
“I wanted to get off the ship in South America, which is not allowed. You join the crew—you join the crew for life. Our ship is not a taxi service.” He pauses, absently inspecting an empty crab shell. “But once I saw you…” He tosses it to the ground. “I cannot really explain. I wasn’t sure what would happen and that was not okay anymore. Davies could surprise you sometimes.” He looks at her. “I couldn’t be sure you would be safe. Maybe he would negotiate—maybe he wouldn’t. He could have laughed at me and gave you to the men, or thrown you overboard. He could have thrown me in, too, for trying to blackmail him. I knew those were options before we met … but after … it was not a risk I was willing to make.
“But then, I could not stop…” He hesitates, looking away. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
She looks up at him, surprised.
He is shaking his head, gazing across the fading horizon. “I found myself drawn more and more to the basement—to you, despite everything in my gut telling me to stay away. A storm would pass through and all I would do was worry I would find you the next morning facedown under some shelving I had not secured properly. When I heard your voice after that cyclone, I was relieved. But then … then I watched you starve. You could not see your face but I could. You were wasting away. The color of your skin, your cheekbones sticking out.”
“Lucas—”
“Once I gave you food, started taking care of you, I knew I was in over my head. I was in it now. That old man who came down to your room one night…”
“I was terrified.”
“It was me who tipped Davies off. I saw the man wander down there but I did not want to make a scene. He was wasted … he is a pretty useless human being, to be honest. I knew he wasn’t looking for you but he is a hardened old man who would not have cared at all about what happened to you. He is one of the originals with Davies. I made sure not to look up from my cards and said, ‘That man pisses in my basement, he’s dead.’ I knew Davies would jump—and he did.”
Maia looks at him, captivated by his face, a face she’d memorized for months while hiding down in the basement of that boat. He rolls the colorful cord tied around his wrist between his fingertips. His shoulders slumped, it looks like a blanket of shame is anchoring him down. Despite all his attempts to prove otherwise, it’s clear this man cares.
She brushes a curl away from his swollen eye. It certainly seems like the worst of it is over. “You don’t look … so bad,” she says with a smirk.
He grunts and a smile spreads across his face for the first time since the ship. He looks at her fondly from the corner of his eye. “Thanks.”
Thirty-Seven
The intense, early morning sun hangs low in the sky, hurling rays like fire across the far-reaching wreckage. Dawn has only just awakened and the suffocating heat surrounds them like the inside of an incinerator.
Lucas shuffles up to their camp and dumps an armful of driftwood next to a squirming net of crabs. “This is the last of it, as far as I can see. We have a couple of pretty big logs in our pile of boat supplies, but I think we should save those. If we get the entire thing built and do not need them, we can always make another fire before leaving.”
“I agree,” Maia says as she surveys the small selection of scraps. “Okay, so this is it.”
“This is it. After this, our fire goes out for good.”
“Do you think there’s enough to split into two lots so we can eat again tomorrow?”
Lucas nudges the pile with the tip of his boot, his face calculating. “I don’t think so. By the time we cook these crabs, our fire will be bordering on embers. There is just enough to keep the momentum going for one big meal.”
“So … we feast.”
“We feast.”
Huddling under the tarp, nothing but the sounds of snapping crab legs, slurping, and crackling embers can be heard. The heat surrounds them like a furnace, yet Maia barely breaks a sweat anymore as dehydration kicks in. Lucas hands her the small collection bowl of water.
“Is there enough?” she asks.
“We have some more condensing over there to add. We can drink this bowl but should definitely ration the rest.”
Maia takes the bowl and sips at its limited supply. “It feels like rain is coming.”
Lucas smiles. “You said that yesterday.”
Maia slurps another mouthfu
l of water. She forces herself to put the container down. “I know. It’s coming.”
Lucas picks up the last cooked crab from their makeshift bowl. “Shall we split it?”
“I’m so full. I feel like I’m going to be sick—”
“You can do it, Maia.” He cracks the legs in half, keeping two for him and handing her the rest. “Eat it.”
As they sit huddled under their tarp with a bounty of shells surrounding them, they watch mournfully as the last of the fire smolders into faint whispers of smoke.
“Lucas?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about Bode. I didn’t realize you … cared about him.”
He looks at her for a long time without saying anything. “The thing is, it’s easy to judge. I joined that ship and thought I could be hard and tough like the rest of them, wall myself off, not give a shit about anyone but myself. It’s safer that way. But over time, I learned a lot about those men. We did not really talk about our ‘feelings,’ but the stories came out in bits and pieces—mostly when we were drinking. I’ve spent time with some of the worst people in the world, and some of them, yeah, they are animals. But they were children once. Many of them loved, some of them had children of their own. They are hardened from the atrocities of life, from having nothing left to lose. Most of us were only on that ship because the lands we left held too many ghosts.”
He pulls at a loose string hanging from his ripped pant leg. Maia watches him, unsure of what to say. All she can think about is, he said, “us.”
“Anyway, looks like we might be getting that rain after all.” Lucas points to the horizon where a billow of black clouds is swelling up from the seams of the earth. Lightning flickers within the dark mass and a strong breeze rolls loose debris across the shore. “I think we are in for a big storm. We should lay out as many bins and bottles as possible to collect water. It’s moving pretty fast; most storms around here come and go quickly. This could be a game changer for us, Maia.”
“I told you it would rain.” She smirks.
Lucas smiles as thunder growls from a distance. He nearly looks like himself again. The swelling of his lip has dissipated and the rift along his brow is closing in. Only faded patches of yellow surround his eye. “Vamos!” he says as he grabs her hand.
They run across the rubble gathering bottles and bins … anything wide enough to collect as much rainwater as possible. Maia shields her face as the debris and sand pelt into her skin. The light continues to fade as ominous black clouds advance steadily across the sky. A blinding flash and piercing clack knocks Maia to her feet as the heavens and earth connect through a single blade of light.
“Are you okay?” Lucas yells over the wind.
“Fine!” she yells back as she stumbles to her feet.
“Nothing that can fly away in the wind!” Lucas shouts. “Put them close to our tarp so we can refill them as quickly as possible!”
The heavens open and pound the earth with an avalanche of rain. Lucas runs towards the tarp to secure a loose end but Maia remains in the deluge. Tilting her head back, she lifts her hands to the sky as bolts of lightning zigzag across the clouds. She opens her mouth, spinning and giggling like a child as she catches the rain on her tongue.
And then she stops.
Lucas watches her from beneath their tarp. This time he does not look away. Lightning flashes and an immediate crack of thunder collides into the earth, its boom like a sledgehammer. Maia doesn’t move. She stares at Lucas through the thick haze of rain, completely captivated, and she knows. She knows from the very depths of her being that this man’s life will be forever entwined within her own. It is their destiny, written in the stars. She gulps hard, her eyes flittering against the onslaught of rain. She is falling for him. She is falling for him with a fervor unlike anything she’s ever known.
She stands in the downpour until another flash of lightning shatters their trance. The rain pours even heavier now and she sprints towards him under the tarp. “How exhilarating,” she says as she crawls in next to him.
“Yeah,” he says as his gaze fixates on her. “Let it rain.”
They watch in awe as the storm crashes into their little island in relentless waves of fury. The blackened sky flickers in endless flashes of light as mammoth waves of rubbish crash against the shores. Maia sits next to Lucas. Her heart pounding, she is unable to speak.
Just like that, everything changes.
Lucas runs back out into the rain and grabs a few full containers, carefully tilting the sloshing water into larger bins before setting them back out again. “Meu Deus!” Lucas shrieks with his hands raised triumphantly in the air. “So much water!” He grins wide before grabbing a bottle and chugging the entire thing. He fills it up again from a large bin and races it over to Maia. “Drink!”
Sitting under the tarp, the worst of the storm has passed and the rain has settled into a patter. A dozen assorted buckets and bins of precious water are lined up before them.
“Lucas…” Maia’s heart pounding, she finds it hard to find the words. “May I ask you something … personal?”
“Ask me anything.”
She looks to him. “You said, ‘us.’”
“What?”
“You said, ‘most of us left because home held too many ghosts.’”
“Yes … I did.” He takes another swig of his water and they sit in silence.
A seagull walks up to their tarp, tilting its head as it looks between the two of them. It wanders away.
“I was married,” Lucas finally says. “We had a son.”
Maia looks at him, stunned.
He twists the fabric around his wrist. Unblinking, he stares into the sand. “We had to move from our home in Brazil. The Amazon flood lands were overtaking everything. We moved down the coast and set up a new life with a small community of others. My wife wasn’t so intent on leaving Brazil—traveling wasn’t safe, especially with a baby—but I insisted. I wanted what was best for us, and I thought we would find that in leaving. We found a beautiful abandoned house next to the mountains. It was so peaceful.” He lets go of the bracelet and now fidgets with a plastic ring between his trembling fingers.
“My son had just learned to walk.” He looks up to the sky and sighs. “My wife and I were outside in the garden. We had started growing our own food. It was like … it was like all of my dreams were coming true.
“He was sleeping inside the house when the earthquake hit. It was so violent—the shaking. We could hear things breaking. My wife … she was running inside to get him. Neither one of us could stay on our feet. She was so much closer to the house than I was. I kept stumbling across the yard—I couldn’t find my footing.” He finally looks at Maia. “Our house started falling apart … like it was nothing, like a house made of cards. I could hear my son crying inside.”
Maia grabs his trembling hands, still knotting the plastic ring.
“It all came crashing down … the bricks and the wood and the floors. I was screaming, running towards the house. By the time I got to it, the earthquake had stopped. And his crying…” Lucas breaks free from her grasp and wipes the tears from his eyes. “There was no more crying.” He holds his breath, swallowing hard, and tears escape his closed eyes.
“Oh Lucas, I’m so sorry.”
“I worked for days. The rubble…” He holds his hands wide. “Some of it I couldn’t move. My hands were a bloody mess. Others tried helping. They told me I should rest, that I should eat, but I could not. I couldn’t stop. I thought just maybe they will still be alive.
“It took two days until I got to her. Her body was still huddled over him, cradling him. She was hit, hard, in the back of her head. Her body was mangled. Her back, her clothing, sometimes it was hard to distinguish between her and the rubble. But my son under her, he did not have a scratch on him. He died in her embrace, under the weight of our new home. The home I insisted on having.
“I buried them under the monkey puzzle tree. And then I bur
ied myself with them. The community tried taking me in, but I could not stay. I should have been stronger. I should have run faster. I should have protected them. But I was weak.”
“Lucas, no.”
He looks up at her. “I was dead inside, nothing but a shell. When Davies’s ship pulled up to shore, I knew they were pirates. I knew they would probably kill me. But I had nothing to lose. I had to leave South America, dead or alive. I bared myself to them and told them to kill me or let me on. They threw me another crew member, hungry to fight. ‘Kill him or die. Only one of you will get on this boat.’ So, I fought him. I used all my anger and I fought hard. I wanted him to kill me, and the more I beat him, the angrier I became that he was not killing me—I was killing him. Eventually Davies stopped the fight. He had called me, ‘fearless,’ which made me even angrier, because I was not fearless. I was a coward.
“Looking back, I learned that this man and Davies were close, but Davies had to keep the respect. A week later we left that man onshore. I will never forget his face, bruised and broken, glaring at me with more hatred in his eyes than I have ever seen. Every night it haunts me still.
“So, I became a pirate. It was not easy but it was an escape. I could work hard and no one asked questions. There was booze, and sometimes there were women. I threw myself into learning English—I didn’t care about anything else. For four years I was wasting away from the inside out, barely existing day to day in a used-up, decaying world.” He looks up at her with grief-stricken eyes. “Until I met you.”
The clouds have swept clear from the horizon, leaving a sliver of blue sky where the sun is slowly disappearing into the sea. The breeze picks up, sweeping loose strands of hair over Maia’s face.
Lucas leans forward and gently brushes them back. “I have never talked about this to anyone.”
“Thank you for telling me, Lucas. I am so sorry, I can’t imagine.”
“No, I am the one who is sorry. I’m sorry for the way I have been acting towards you. It’s just … I have not felt this way about anyone since my wife. And it has been really hard for me.”
The Weight of a Thousand Oceans Page 19